1883 Is Oregon Trail With a Budget

Spoilers through Episode 4, “The Crossing.”

I started watching 1883 thinking I was watching a grim, beautifully shot Western about people heading west in wagons.

I was wrong.

Four episodes in, it hit me. This is The Oregon Trail. Somebody just gave it a ridiculous budget, Sam Elliott, Beethoven, and a teenager writing the world’s most poetic save-game log.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Shea Has Already Played This Game 400 Times

Shea Brennan is clearly the guy who has played The Oregon Trail 400 times.

Everybody else is starting their first game.

The immigrants show up ready to go and have apparently spent all their starting money on furniture, giant trunks, everything from the house and, because somebody really thought this through, A PIANO.

Nobody bought enough practical equipment.

Nobody understands river crossings.

Several players apparently spent zero character-building points on Language: English.

And Shea is standing there looking at everyone’s inventory screen thinking, “Oh my God. These people are going to die.”

This explains his entire personality.

Shea doesn’t really do apologies. Sometimes he seems to do the negative of apology.

He gives people absolutely devastating instructions with the emotional warmth of someone explaining that the game won’t let you carry 3,800 pounds in a wagon rated for 2,500.

“Leave it.”

“But this belonged to my family.”

“Leave it.”

“But I need it.”

“Leave it.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll burn your wagon to the ground.”

And the wagon-burning part? He actually threatens that. Leave enough stuff behind or he’ll burn the thing you need to get anywhere.

Then we get this incredible shot of the immigrants walking away, with everything they’ve been forced to leave behind scattered across the field. Furniture. Chests. Chairs. Tools. Pieces of their lives.

And sure, you could call that “leaving their old lives behind.”

But hold on. What about the musician?

My Guy, You Brought a Piano on The Oregon Trail

This poor bastard has brought a piano.

Not a violin.

Not a flute.

Not a concertina.

Not even an accordion.

A piano.

I don’t know how he could have picked a worse instrument to drag across the country in a wagon.

Unless he’d brought a full-sized Wurlitzer organ. That would do it.

Then we’re playing The Organ Trail.

And this isn’t just some keepsake. He’s a musician. This is how he makes a living. It’s what he does. It’s who he is.

Shea’s telling him to leave behind the thing he was counting on to earn a living when he got there.

Which is brutal.

But also...

My guy.

You brought a piano on The Oregon Trail.

How Is This Thing Still in Tune?

And then we get to the part that really got me.

Elsa eventually sits down at the piano.

And it’s PERFECTLY TUNED.

This piano has presumably crossed an ocean, been loaded and unloaded, shoved into a wagon, bounced down terrible roads, baked in the sun, cooled off at night and spent the entire trip getting rattled around. Heat, cold, humidity, dust. All of it.

Elsa sits down.

Perfect concert instrument.

Apparently one of the immigrants put several skill points into Piano Tuning and nobody mentioned it.

Also, did we ever see this guy break out the piano and play it on the trail? I don’t remember that happening.

Which makes sense.

Because it’s A PIANO.

Nobody gets to camp after fourteen hours of wagon travel and says:

“Okay, dinner’s cooking. Somebody get the six-hundred-pound piano down. We could use some music.”

This guy’s using up all that wagon space for a piano, and we don’t even get campfire music out of it.

Had he picked a harmonica, this would’ve been a very different episode.

Shea: “You need to leave your instrument.”

Musician: “No.”

Shea: “It’s too heavy.”

Musician puts harmonica in pocket.

Shea: “Fine.”

Problem solved.

1883, Episode 4: “The Crossing.” Runtime: 11 minutes.

Oh. That’s Why They Needed the Piano.

But then I realized what we’d lose.

Without that piano, we don’t get Elsa playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata while people are dying in the river.

And... okay. That’s worth the ridiculous piano situation.

That scene is fantastic. Elsa’s playing this beautiful, calm piece of music while the river is casually murdering people.

Civilization on one side.

Nature on the other.

Beethoven:

Dun... dun... dun...

YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO FORD THE RIVER.

YOUR WAGON HAS OVERTURNED.

FOUR MEMBERS OF YOUR PARTY HAVE DROWNED.

YOU HAVE LOST 187 POUNDS OF FOOD.

The Alternate Soundtrack Menu

But now I’m wondering what that scene would look like if Elsa found one of the other instruments.

Harmonica: “Oh! Susanna.”
It fits in a pocket. Already a better plan. Unfortunately, now a wagon’s tipping over and somebody’s disappearing under the water while Elsa plays this cheerful little tune. We’ve gone from heartbreaking television to a deeply inappropriate singalong.

Violin: “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
Now we’re watching Titanic with wagons. The violin keeps playing, everybody’s going under, and I’m waiting for someone to point out that there’s room for two people on that floating piece of furniture. Which, conveniently, they brought plenty of.

Full-sized Wurlitzer organ: Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.”
Now every overturned wagon gets the full haunted-castle treatment. I’m expecting Dracula to climb out of the next one. We’ve definitely loaded The Organ Trail.

Now picture Shea finding that organ in the wagon.

Shea: “You’re leaving that.”

Musician: “But I am musician.”

Shea: “You’re leaving it.”

Musician: “It is my life.”

Shea: “Your life currently requires six oxen and its own building.”

Bach begins anyway.

The Oregon Trail Always Needed Beethoven

And now I’m realizing The Oregon Trail should’ve had Moonlight Sonata playing in the background all along.

“You have died of dysentery.”

Moonlight Sonata continues.

“An ox has died.”

Moonlight Sonata continues.

“Martha has cholera.”

Moonlight Sonata continues.

“Kevin broke his arm.”

Beethoven doesn’t care.

The river doesn’t care.

Shea doesn’t have time to explain why you should’ve listened to him.

It fits way too well. Moonlight Sonata doesn’t sound panicked. It sounds like the universe has already accepted what’s happening while you’re still trying to negotiate with it.

Which is basically the entire Oregon Trail experience.

Shea Already Knows How This Goes

The immigrants look at the river and think, well, maybe we can make it.

Shea’s already seen the screen that comes next.

“Can we cross here?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t look that deep.”

“No.”

“The wagon should make it.”

“No.”

“The menu says we can caulk the wagon and float it.”

“The menu is a liar.”

He’s seen this exact thing happen 400 times.

He knows what happens if you bring too much weight.

He knows what happens if you pick the wrong crossing.

He knows what happens when somebody decides the river “doesn’t look that bad.”

The immigrants are still learning the interface.

Shea has memorized the failure states.

Elsa Is Writing the Save-Game Journal

And Elsa?

Elsa is the game’s narrator.

Every time the game tells us something awful happened, she turns it into a diary entry. In my head, it goes like this:

Game:

THREE PEOPLE DROWNED.

Elsa:

“The river took them as though it had been waiting since the beginning of time for us to arrive.”

Game:

AN OX HAS DIED.

Elsa:

“Death followed us across the plains, patient as the horizon.”

Game:

YOU HAVE LOST 40 POUNDS OF FLOUR.

Elsa:

“With every mile, the world stripped another piece of who we had been.”

At some point I expect the camera to pan across the prairie while Elsa says something beautiful about how nature doesn’t give a shit, followed immediately by:

JOSEF HAS DYSENTERY.

And now the whole show makes sense.

It’s The Oregon Trail with character development.

The immigrants are first-time players who spent their starting cash on furniture and a piano.

Nobody spent enough points on English.

Half the party keeps selecting dangerous dialogue options.

Elsa is writing the save-game journal.

Beethoven is providing the death-screen music.

And Sam Elliott is the veteran player sitting behind everyone, watching them make terrible decisions and muttering:

“You’re all gonna die.”

Five stars. Would ford the river again.